Visually impaired, she has a vision for Chandigarh

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 20

Forty-six-year-old Lata Diyat, an Independent candidate for the Municipal Corporation (MC) poll, is visually impaired. However, she has a vision for the City Beautiful.

Despite 100 per cent impairment, Lata has actively been participating in social work being done by an environment society. She has also been teaching voluntarily at the Institute for the Blind, Sector 26, for the past eight years.

Lata, who is BA, BEd and has cleared NET, is fighting from Ward No. 6 (parts of Mani Majra). She decided to take a plunge into politics for social work, improve sanitation in her ward and turn the whole city greener by planting more trees.

“Besides, I will work for solving the water and power issues. I am an animal lover. So, I will get a shelter built for them,” said Lata, a resident of Shanti Nagar, Mani Majra. Her main slogan is “Ek vote paryavaran ke naam”.

Unlike other candidates, she has to face some unusual questions. “I am getting a good response during campaigning, but some people in rural areas ask me how I will work in the ward being visually impaired? I tell them that to understand the problem of garbage and potholes, I do not need eyes. And after all, my ward people will become my eyes,” she remarked.

A native of Mandi district in Himachal Pradesh, Lata completed her studies from the School for Blind and pursued senior secondary education from Government Model School, Sector 18. Later, she did her higher studies from the GCG, Sector 11, and BEd from the Sector 20 BEd College. Her father was a lawyer in the Punjab and Haryana Court and mother a housewife. Both have died.

She lost her vision at the age of 30 when she was diagnosed with glaucoma. Later, Lata got married to Gurwinder Singh, a gardener. The couple has two sons. One, who is studying in the School for Blind, is 80 per cent visually impaired due to glaucoma while the other son is studying at Khalsa School, Sector 26.

“Sometimes, people make us feel that ‘divyangs’ are different from them and can do nothing. I think we are just like others and can do anything,” she said.